THE DUCKING OF 
HERBERT POLTON 

PZ 3 AND 

• M2329 COINCIDENCE 

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copy i 

BY 

H. C. McNEILE 


NEW 


YORK 


GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 





COPYRIGHT, 1924-, 
BY H. C. MC NEILE 



THE DUCKING OF HERBERT POLTON AND COINCIDENCE 

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PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 

©C1A815336 


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THE DUCKING OF 
HERBERT POLTON 


O F course it’s the old, old story—two men and a 
woman. But it ended so wonderfully right: it 
might almost have been the conventional happy 
ending of the stage. And not only did it end right for 
the two principal characters, but a whole host of supers 
who don’t even appear in the plot regarded the affair 
with a sort of dazed, hysterical joy. 

Decorous City magnates departed from their usual 
abstemious habits, and consumed champagne for 
luncheon when they heard of it: in fact, if young Bill 
Saunderson had asked for a wedding present he would 
probably have got a check running into five figures sub¬ 
scribed by a large number of people whom he had never 
heard of in his life. 

In fact, Moyra’s Uncle William— However, of 
Uncle William more anon. But Bill was asking for 
nothing except Moyra Jackson, and when all is said 
and done he’d have been a greedy blighter if he had. 
And when it became evident that he was the winner 
out of a very large field, it was significant that every 
other competitor, short of winning himself, was 
pleased. All, that is, except one, and he was the third 
principal. 

Bill wasn’t exactly engaged to Moyra when he went 
out to British East Africa to make his fortune. In 
fact, the field was open. 


3 


4 THE DUCKING OF HERBERT POLTON 

“How the devil can I tie her down like that?” he 
said to me one day at lunch at the club. ‘Tve got four 
hundred a year and a gratuity of two thousand quid. 
It’s impossible, Squash-face: it wouldn’t be fair to her.” 

(As this story is strictly true, I must reveal, without 
prejudice, to unsympathetic strangers, my entirely un¬ 
just and uncalled-for nickname.) 

“If I invest the two thousand it means another 
hundred a year,” he went on. “I ask you—what is five 
hundred a year ?” 

He gloomily excavated the Stilton, and ordered a 
glass of light port. 

I agreed that five hundred a year didn’t go far for 
two people, especially with tastes like theirs. They’d 
both hunted, and Bill liked polo, which he’d been able 
to afford while he was in the service. And Moyra 
liked clothes, being an ordinary normal girl, even if she 
was a darling. 

“Of course, her old governor would put down some¬ 
thing, I suppose,” he went on after a while. “But I 
couldn’t expect him to stump up more than I can put 
down myself. A thousand in all, say.” 

“What does Moyra think about it?” I inquired. 

He got a bit red in the face. 

“Look here, old man,” he said, “I’ve been talking 
out of my turn. But I know you so well I’m pretty 
certain that if I asked her, she’d marry me with things 
as they are. But I haven’t asked her, and I don’t want 
to give you the impression that there’s any understand¬ 
ing or whatever they call it between her and me. There 
isn’t, and as far as I can see”—he relapsed into gloom 
—“there ain’t likely to be. I’m beginning to think I 
was a fool to chuck the Army, except that it was a dead 
end for me. I wouldn’t have got into the Staff Col- 


THE DUCKING OF HERBERT POLTON 5 

lege in a hundred years. But I must say, Squash-face, 
the demand for my services has not caused me to post 
a policeman at the door to regulate the traffic.” 

And though I didn’t say so, I doubted if any such 
demand was ever likely to be made on that excellent 
body of men as far as Bill was concerned. He was 
just like hundreds of others—a clean-living sportsman 
without a trade. And there’s no money in being a 
clean-living sportsman. To ride straight at your 
fences, possess more than your fair ability with a gun, 
and be next door to first-class at all games with a ball 
is an excellent state of affairs: but from the financial 
point of view an ability to draw a picture of a good 
mixed-grill on the pavement wins in a canter. 

The trouble was that he had no technical knowledge. 
A fairly senior subaltern when war broke out, he had 
finished up in command of a battalion with three gold 
stripes and various bits of ribbon to his credit. And 
technical knowledge which is of marketable value is not 
acquired in such a career. In fact, it was a thousand 
pities that he had chucked the service, where, with his 
private means, he could have gone on living the life 
that suited him in comparative comfort. 

However, like many others during that period of 
false values which reached its climax in the summer 
of 1919, Bill Saunderson chucked in his hand. It was 
perfectly true that had he remained on it would have 
entailed his reversion to company commander for an 
indefinite period: it was perfectly true that seventy per 
cent, of his pals were dead. But it was the reaction 
principally that did it: that, and the prevalent and com¬ 
pletely erroneous impression that it was easy to get a 
job. Any old thing, you know . . . Organizing. . . . 
A perfect whale at organization. . . . 


6 THE DUCKING OF HERBERT POLTON 

Heavens! the number of fellows who think they can 
organize. . . . And old Bill was one of the worst. 
He had no more idea of organization than I have of 
trimming a hat. Less—far less. 

I said so to Moyra Jackson one day. The conversa¬ 
tion had turned on Bill, as it frequently did if she and 
I were alone. 

“Surely, Squash-face,” she said a little wistfully, 
“there must be some market for a man like him. When 
you see the awful horrors you do see, earning huge 
salaries, it seems ridiculous that Bill can’t get a job. 
He’s ever so much nicer than they are. And I know he 
could run things.” 

I smiled: I couldn’t help it. 

“What are you laughing for?” she demanded. 
“Look at that frightful ass, Julius Mortimer. All he 
does is to sit in an office and draw five thousand a year 
for running a cement works. Why shouldn’t Bill?” 

“Largely, my child,” I murmured, “because Bill 
knows sweet dam’ all about cement. Are you aware 
that the frightful Julius has spent twenty-seven years 
of his life mastering the cement trade and everything 
connected with it in all its details? You can’t start in 
on a show at the top; you’ve got to begin at the bottom 
—as our Julius did. Pushing a truck on little rails. 
Bill could get a job at that to-morrow, provided he 
joined a trade-union and promised only to push one 
truck an hour.” 

“You’re a fool, Squash-face,” she announced with- 
eringly. 

“Maybe, my dear,” I agreed. “But I do know some¬ 
thing about business and its ways, and there is no 
good prophesying good things. Besides, I’m far too 
fond of you and Bill. There are two ways of getting 


THE DUCKING OF HERBERT POLTON 7 

a job that is worth being called a job to-day: one is by 
ability and the other by influence. And influence is the 
method Ed choose if I had the choice.” 

And then, out of the blue, so to speak, came the 
scheme in British East Africa. I’d been away on busi¬ 
ness in Italy, and it was all cut and dried when I 
returned. As a favor I was let into the secret over a 
little dinner a trois one night. 

“We’re keeping it dark, Squash-face,” said Bill. 
“No good yapping about these things all over the place. 
But it’s a cinch, old son; a dead snip.” 

And on paper it certainly seemed to be a very sound 
proposition. It was coffee, as far as I remember, as 
the main plank, with various side issues, and it held out 
no widely extravagant promises. Twenty to thirty per 
cent.; perhaps even fifty, depending entirely on the 
amount of work put in by the owner. Also, of course, 
a bit of luck; there’s bound to be the element of chance 
in farming. But the great thing was the life. First- 
class shooting; congenial society of the type who speak 
the language as the phrase goes; a wonderful climate. 
And the name of the company which was running the 
whole affair was the British East African Combine, 
Ltd. 

It had Bill hooked fast and Moyra too. 

“Think of it, Squash-face,” he said. “Away from 
all these frightful people you hear eating around us; 
out in a new country with an open-air life. No bally 
old income-tax to worry one—not that it worries me 
much as it is, but that’s a detail. And if I can get a 
thousand a year out of the place, why—” 

He broke off and stared for a moment or two at 
Moyra. And she—well, dash it, there had been a time 
when I had dreamt a wild dream that it might be my 


8 THE DUCKING OF HERBERT POLTON 

luck to bring that look into her eyes. But it was only 
a dream and has nothing to do with this story. . . . 

And so to British East went Bill with a young 
arsenal of rifles and guns. And as I said before, he 
wasn’t exactly engaged to Moyra. I met her a few days 
after he’d sailed and she came in and lunched with me. 
She saw, I suppose, that I glanced at her left hand 
and she smiled a little wistfully. 

“I almost threatened to buy one myself and wear it,” 
she said. “But he wouldn’t. He insisted that I should 
be absolutely free until he’s made good.” 

“But you are,” I said. 

“Of course,” she answered. 

Which is really far more intelligible than it looks in 
black and white. 

It was just as we were finishing lunch that she re¬ 
verted to him again. 

“You think it’s all right, Squash-face, don’t you?” 
she said. “It’s a good show and all that?” 

“As far as I can see it’s quite all right,” I answered. 
“Anyway, even if it isn’t, the only expense involved is 
a return ticket.” 

“But he’s had to pay two thousand already,” she said. 
“There was such a rush, you see, to get ground. And 
there is only a limited amount available.” 

“The devil he has!” I exclaimed involuntarily. It 
hadn’t struck me before that Bill would put up the 
money before seeing the place, and it altered the com¬ 
plexion of things very considerably. Of course, it 
might be all right; on the other hand it most certainly 
might not. But as it was done there was no good in 
voicing such fears to Moyra, and I told her that I was 
sure the scheme was perfectly sound. Even so, a tiny 
little pucker of anxiety was still remaining on her fore- 


THE DUCKING OF HERBERT POLTON 9 

head when the coffee came. That first exclamation of 
mine had given me away. 

“Don’t worry, my dear,” I repeated as I put her into 
a taxi. “Old Bill is going to come out on top. I’m 
off to the States to-morrow for two or three months, 
and when I come back I’ll probably find you packing 
up to go out and join him.” 

It was four months, to be exact, before I returned, 
and a few days later I went down to spend a week-end 
with the Jacksons. Moyra herself had driven the car 
over to the station to meet me, and, our first greetings 
over, we plunged into the subject of Bill. 

“Everything O.K., Squash-face,” she said, and I 
heaved an inward sigh of relief. “He says it’s a mag¬ 
nificent climate, and that he’s going to make his for¬ 
tune.” Her eyes were very soft and shining. “I wrote 
him last mail to tell him that whether he likes it or not 
I am going out to join him.” 

“Good,” I cried. “I’m so glad, Moyra. So, you see, 
I was right, though I don’t mind telling you that, at the 
time, I was a bit uneasy. It was parting with his money 
before he’d seen the ground that frightened me.” 

We were driving up to the front door as I spoke, and 
I saw four men playing tennis on the hard court. 

“It’s a secret, Squash-face,” she said as we pulled 
up, “about my going out to Bill.” 

“A secret it is,” I answered. “Locked in my heart. 
But just at the moment I was thinking I’d got ’em 
again. Is that or is that not Herbert Polton wielding 
a tennis racket with the utmost inefficiency?” 

“That’s Mr. Polton. Why?” 

“I’d no idea you knew him.” 

“He’s a friend of Daddy’s,” she answered. “Don’t 
you like him?” 


IO THE DUCKING OF HERBERT POLTON 

“Mother always told me it was rude to criticize one’s 
fellow-guests,” I murmured. “But for your ears alone 
I will tell you my opinion of Mr. Polton. He is with¬ 
out exception the most vile human being that this or 
any other age has ever produced. Otherwise, of course, 
quite charming.” 

“I’m glad you like him so much,” she answered. 
“Uncle William seems almost as fond of him as you 
are. Personally, I can’t quite see it. What’s the matter 
with the man?” 

“My dear soul,” I said, “you dine at eight. It is 
now six. There is time for a drink, and there is time 
for a bath, but there is not time to even touch the 
fringe of what is the matter with Herbert. I can't be¬ 
lieve he’s a friend of your father’s.” 

She shrugged her shoulders. 

“Not exactly a friend; more a business acquaintance, 
I think.” 

And with that the matter dropped, though as I 
dressed for dinner I couldn’t help wondering what had 
caused Herbert Polton to depart so far from his usual 
habits as to spend a week-end out of London and play 
tennis. 

He loathed the country and everything connected 
with it, just as he detested all forms of exercise. There 
was only one driving force in his life and that was 
money, and the power that money confers. To that end 
he had devoted himself, and at the age of forty he was 
a millionaire many times over. 

He was a small man, thin-lipped and clean-shaven, 
with a pair of penetrating blue eyes. And his eyes gave 
the clew to the whole man. They were cold and utterly 
merciless, even as Herbert Polton was cold and merci¬ 
less. He fought his financial battles giving no quarter 


THE DUCKING OF HERBERT POLTON n 


and expecting none. And if in the process of amassing 
a few more hundred thousand pounds which he couldn’t 
possibly spend, two or three smaller men were ruined, 
that was their fault, not his. The weakest to the wall, 
was his motto, and had been ever since he started in 
the City at the age of twenty. 

“No one showed me any mercy,” he had been heard 
to say. “So why should I show it to others ? I fought 
my way to what I am now alone and unaided, and now 
that I’m here I don’t propose to alter the rules.” 

One thing there was about him. He had many irons 
in the fire: he had interests in every corner of the 
world: but as far as the letter of the law was concerned 
he was scrupulously honest. Not that it could be ac¬ 
counted to him for virtue: it was simply rudimentary 
common sense. Only the fool goes outside the letter 
of the law, and however much Herbert Polton offended 
against the spirit of everything that is right and decent 
in life he was not a fool. 

But it was not so much his ruthless methods that 
made him so universally detested; it was the man him¬ 
self. He had a snarling, sneering way of talking, 
especially to a man who was down, that would have 
resulted in murder in more primitive times. There was 
the case, for instance, of one of his head clerks who 
had been with him for ten years. He was a married 
man with three children, and Polton sacked him for 
some trifling clerical error. And a week later the dis¬ 
missed man stabbed him as he left his office. The poor 
devil got ten years for it, though Polton was hissed in 
court as he gave his evidence. 

Personally, I had run across him once or twice on 
business matters. I had some interests adjoining his 
in Burma, and a year previously one or two small de- 


12 THE DUCKING OF HERBERT POLTON 


tails had arisen which necessitated some discussion. 
His agent out there—a man named Condor, and a very 
decent fellow—had been in London, and it was to see 
him principally that I had been to Polton’s palatial 
office in Trafalgar Square. A sick man was Condor— 
eaten out with fever. A lot of his work lay in the man¬ 
grove swamps, and it was a pestilential climate, he told 
me. 

I found Polton in the hall sipping a glass of sherry 
when I went down, and we nodded to one another and 
exchanged a few remarks. And it was he who volun¬ 
teered the information. 

“Remember that agent of mine, Condor?” he said. 
“Got a cable yesterday to say that he was dead.” 

“Pm sorry about that,” I remarked. “He looked 
very ill when I saw him in London. Fever, I sup¬ 
pose ?” 

“Yes—fever,” he answered indifferently. “Three 
years is about the longest a white man can do there. 
Condor lasted four. I suppose you don’t know of a 
good man who wants the job ?” 

“What job? Dying? No, I don’t.” 

Little swine! I could have hit him under the jaw 
with comfort at that moment. I knew Condor had 
asked for a change, but it was specialized work which 
it took some time to pick up. So Polton had turned 
down the request. 

“Do you stay here often ?” he asked casually, though 
his eyes were fixed on me intently. 

“Very often, when I’m in England,” I answered a 
little surprised. “Why do you ask?” 

“Oh! nothing. I only wondered. With a charming 
girl like Miss Jackson it’s not surprising.” 

His face registered what Polton called a smile. 


THE DUCKING OF HERBERT POLTON 13 

“Pm afraid I fail to follow,” I remarked coldly, and 
even as I spoke a sudden look came into his eyes. It 
was gone in a moment, but there was no mistaking its 
significance. Without even turning round I knew 
Moyra was coming across the hall towards us, and I 
also knew something else—the reason of Polton’s pres¬ 
ence in the house. The reptile was in love with Moyra ; 
I knew it as certainly as if he had spoken his thoughts 
out loud. How it had started: where he had met her: 
what had been the beginning of the thing I didn’t know. 
But the fact remained that Herbert Polton had fallen 
in love. 

I went in to dinner a little thoughtfully. The thing, 
of course, was absurd. He was sitting next her, and 
was evidently going out of his way to be pleasant. And 
Polton being pleasant was not without its humor. The 
only point I couldn’t quite get at was whether Moyra 
had any idea as to the state of affairs. A woman gen¬ 
erally spots that particular ailment in a man on the very 
first symptom, but then Polton was hardly a man. He 
was an atrophied calculating machine. 

I understood now the reason of his remarks to me 
before dinner. Evidently he’d been trying to pump me 
about Moyra, and I smiled inwardly. There was one 
thing at any rate in which ruthless business efficiency 
availed nothing, and that was in the matter of love. 
Bill, with his paltry two thousand, won in a canter 
there. And when we sat down to play bridge after¬ 
wards, the thought of the jolt awaiting Herbert if and 
when he laid his vast fortune and his unpleasing per¬ 
sonality at Moyra’s feet, was as balm to my soul. 

And now for a moment it becomes necessary to 
digress. The digression is only apparent: in reality it 
has a close bearing on what is to follow. But I must 


i4 THE DUCKING OF HERBERT POLTON 

mention briefly the unfortunate contretemps that took 
place that night over the card-table. 

Fate—in the shape of cutting—decreed that Mr. 
Jackson and I played against Polton and Uncle William, 
whom I will now introduce. Uncle William was and is 
a bachelor, with, I regret to state, a penchant for vin¬ 
tage port. And that night at dinner he had consumed 
four glasses. He was an Anglo-Indian of fiery tem¬ 
perament and considerable wealth, and he suffered 
from one great delusion. He thought he was a first- 
class bridge player. 

Now, he wasn’t. Honesty compels me to state that 
at his brightest and best he was distinctly C 3. And 
after four glasses of the old and bold he was about Z 5. 
But the delusion remained. 

On the contrary, Herbert Polton was first-class. He 
combined a wonderful memory and a clear brain with 
an almost uncanny card sense. In fact, he was as good 
a player as any one is ever likely to meet. 

The trouble occurred in the third hand that was 
played. Polton was dummy and Uncle William had 
gone four no trumps, which I had doubled. And Uncle 
William got the lead in the wrong hand and went down 
three when he ought to have made his contract. 

I will not linger over the subsequent scene. There 
are men with whom it is a pleasure to play cards, and 
there are others. Herbert Polton was one of the others. 
It was not, as he pointed out after a few preliminary 
remarks, that he objected to the loss of money, but 
that he considered that there should be some standard 
of proficiency which must be attained before people 
were allowed to play. To which Uncle William replied 
that if the same idea was extended to lawn tennis and 


THE DUCKING OF HERBERT POLTON 15 

manners he would be the first to agree with it. And 
with that the subject dropped—save in Uncle William’s 
mind. It lingered there until in the fullness of time— 
But of that in its proper place. 

It was about a month later that Bill walked into my 
rooms and threw himself into a chair. I was so sur¬ 
prised that for a moment or two I stared at him with¬ 
out speaking, and then I realized that things were 
wrong. His eyes were tired, and there were lines on his 
face that had never been there before. 

“I suppose you know a good many silly fools, 
Squash-face?” he said at length. “Well, I’m the king 
of that castle.” 

“What’s up, old man?” I asked, pushing over the 
cigarettes. 

“Merely that the British East African Combine, 
Ltd., is the most almighty swindle,” he answered 
wearily. 

“But Moyra told me you were making your for¬ 
tune.” 

He laughed a little bitterly. 

“There was no good making her unhappy. It was a 
lie, of course; though when I wrote that letter I had 
something else in my mind which might have turned 
up trumps. It didn’t, and that’s that. And then she 
wrote and told me she was coming out to join me. 
That’s why I’ve come back; to stop her. By God, old 
man,” he burst out savagely, “it’s a foul ramp, that 
scheme! I’ve lost my two thousand, but there were one 
or two others—” 

He broke off and drummed with his fingers on the 
table. 

“There was a boy there—quite a youngster. Married 


16 THE DUCKING OF HERBERT POLTON 

—and his wife was with him. Lost every penny. Nice 
boy, too, but not the stuff to stand that. Got on the 
drink, and blew out her brains and then his own.” 

“Can’t you run them in, Bill?” I said after a mo¬ 
ment. 

“I don’t know. Perhaps. But it’s diabolically 
clever, Squash-face—that agreement of theirs. Every¬ 
thing they said in it is right up to a point. And that’s 
where the crux comes in. It’s a question of degree. 
All they have done is to unload—I won’t say worthless 
ground, but next door to it—on fellows at about a thou¬ 
sand per cent, over its proper price. Everything was 
to depend on the amount of work put in by the buyer. 
Naturally, the same may be said of any farming pros¬ 
pect. And if I’d bought that ground for say two hun¬ 
dred pounds, which is about what it was worth, and 
been able to put the remaining eighteen hundred into 
improvement and irrigation and that sort of thing, it 
might have proved a reasonable show. But there’s no 
law against selling a thing at an inflated price, if you 
can get fools to buy.” 

We went into it that morning from all angles, and 
at length I had to agree with him. It was just one of 
those rotten swindles, which legally are not swindles. 
The ground sold conformed to what was claimed for it, 
and if people were prepared to pay ten times more than 
it was worth it was their worry. 

“You haven’t seen Moyra yet?” I asked him. 

Bill stared out of the window with his back to me. 

“No, I only landed this morning. Squash-face, I’m 
going to ask you to do something for me. Things”— 
he hesitated a moment—“things were pretty well fixed 
up, you’ll understand. And, of course, this has altered 
everything. Well, I’ve been figuring it out on the way 


THE DUCKING OF HERBERT POLTON 17 

home. It’s not fair to keep her hanging around while 
I go on qualifying for a mental home. So I’m just 
going to fade away out of the country. Canada—or 
somewhere. And I want you to tell her how things 
stand. Make her see it, old man; make her under¬ 
stand that it’s not—it’s not— Oh, hang it—you un¬ 
derstand.” 

“I understand perfectly, Bill,” I answered. “When 
are you going?” 

“As soon as I can. I’m going round to interview 
the British East African Combine, Ltd., this afternoon, 
and after that the sooner I’m out of London the better.” 

“Right,” I said. “Dine with me to-night anyway; 
Savoy grill.” 

He nodded, and picked up his hat. 

“You’ll make it clear to her, won’t you, old son?” 

“Confound you, Bill—of course I will! You darned 
quixotic idiot! Now, for the love of Mike, clear out. 
I’ve got work to do.” 

And it was work, too. What on earth was wrong 
with the telephone system that day I don’t know. But 
it took me the best part of an hour to get through to 
Moyra, and then she could hardly hear what I said. 

“Savor grill,” I bellowed. “Stop with Aunt Jane. 
Eight o’clock.” 

“But how is Bill?” she said for the twentieth time. 

“Wait and see,” I retorted brilliantly. 

And I’d replaced the receiver before she had a chance 
of being rude. 

He halted a bit in his tracks, did Bill, when he saw 
Moyra with me that evening. And Moyra made a 
little sound in her throat that was half a sigh and half 
a sob, though she was pleased to be severely aloof when 
he came up. 


18 THE DUCKING OF HERBERT POLTON 


“You old blighter, Squash-face,” he said, and his 
voice shook a bit. “Moyra—my dear—” 

“Look here, young fellah,” she said, “you’re for it. 
What in the name of fortune do you mean by sneaking 
into England and trying to sneak out again without 
letting me know? And if the good-looking man on my 
right had not had the sense to telephone me you might 
have succeeded.” 

“But don’t you see, my dear,” he said, helplessly, “it’s 
put the lid on the whole show.” 

And quite suddenly she dropped her bantering tone. 

“Dear boy,” she said very low. “Dear, dear boy. 
Do you really think that it’s made any difference at 
all?” 

“At this juncture,” I murmured, “utilizing to the 
full that tact which has made me famous throughout 
three continents, I will go and ascertain if the oysters 
are prepared for the sacrifice.” 

“Ass!” said Bill, but ten minutes later when I re¬ 
turned, it struck me that the difference was certainly 
not large. 

Once again we went over it all. He’d been down to 
see the people in the office, but he’d got very little 
change out of them. They were merely the agents, 
and if he chose to take legal proceedings—well, they’d 
regret it, but there was nothing to prevent him. Of 
course, he would have to prove that there was a definite 
misstatement of fact, and the law was an expensive 
amusement. 

“An oily little swine of a Jew bird, Squash-face,” 
he said, and he smiled happily. “With a lisp: you 
know. I pulled him out of his chair, and I slogged 
him over the head with a Post Office directory. And 
then I said to him that I was merely an agent, but 


THE DUCKING OF HERBERT POLTON 19 

that if he chose to take legal proceedings for assault 
and battery there was nothing to prevent him. I felt 
better after that.” 

And then his face became weary again, and he 
stared at Moyra a bit hopelessly. 

“Lordy, Lordy—what a fool Eve been!” he said for 
the tenth time. 

But for the moment she seemed to be engrossed in 

thought. 

“Give me a cigarette, Bill,” she said at length. “I’m 
hatching out an idea. Pm not going to tell you what 
it is—” She broke off abruptly. “Look here, you 
two; let’s lunch here to-morrow and I’ll tell you if the 
old egg is good or bad.” 

And not another word would she say, though later 
on Bill, when he took her back to Aunt Jane, tried to 
get it out of her. 

“I’ll tell you to-morrow, Bill,” was all she answered, 
and with that he had to be content. 

“What can the dear Kid do?” he said to me pessi¬ 
mistically as we waited for her the next day. “She 
doesn’t understand. She— Good Lord! old man, she’s 
pulled something off. Look at her face!” 

Sure enough the news was good. Moyra was com¬ 
ing towards us smiling triumphantly. 

“Is fifteen hundred a year and first-class prospects 
any good, my lad? For that’s what this child has got 
for you.” 

“It is true,” murmured Bill, “that yonder man looks 
like a bad dream, but I have an idea that I’m awake. 
Elucidate your statement, my angel.” 

I think I had a premonition of what was coming: 
she’d been to Herbert Polton. And as she went over 
the interview, and told us what had happened, I lis- 


20 THE DUCKING OF HERBERT POLTON 

tened half mechanically. Bill was getting keener and 
keener as she talked: the weariness had left his face. 

“It’s in Burma, Bill,” she said. “The manager out 
there has just died. Fifteen hundred a year to start 
with, and he wants to see you this afternoon. And 
Squash-face said he was a sweep”—she turned on me 
with scorn. 

She went on talking, and a feeling of helplessness 
came over me. 

“What job? Dying.” 

My remark to Polton came back to me, but what 
could I do? As clearly as if it were written in a book 
I saw the whole scheme, but of proof I had none. 
Polton, realizing Bill was his rival, had adopted the 
simple expedient of offering him a job at the other end 
of the earth to get rid of him. The fact that by so 
doing he earned the gratitude of Moyra and ran a good 
chance of killing Bill was entirely typical of Herbert 
Polton. But the utter futility of saying so to them was 
apparent. 

You don’t deter a virile man from accepting a good 
job because the locality is unhealthy: you don’t tell 
your best friend that you are convinced that the only 
reason he’s got a job is that the man who has given it 
to him is in love with his girl and wants him out of 
the way. At least not without proof, and my proof 
consisted of a fleeting look on Polton’s face. 

“You’ve got some ground out there, haven’t you, 
Squash-face ?” 

Bill was speaking, and I came out of my reverie. 

“I have,” I answered. And suddenly an idea came 
to me. “I’ll come round and see Polton with you this 
afternoon, Bill. I know him.” 

“Splendid,” said Bill. “I wish you would.” 


THE DUCKING OF HERBERT POLTON 21 


And so half an hour later we strolled along the 
Strand towards Polton’s office. Moyra was doing a 
matinee and we had arranged to foregather for tea at 
Rumpelmaver’s. 

“Look here, Bill,” I said, “I want you particularly 
to remember one thing. Tell Polton that you propose 
to marry Moyra and take her out with you.” 

He looked at me doubtfully. 

“But what about the climate?” 

“Never mind the climate. You tell Polton that. I 
have a reason.” 

“You’re dashed mysterious about this business, old 
man,” he said a little irritably. “It seems to me a won¬ 
derfully good job, and a very sporting effort on the 
part of this man Polton, considering he’s never seen 
me.” 

I took a chance. 

“He’s seen Moyra,” I said. 

Bill turned white. 

“What the devil do you mean?” he said quietly. 

“Exactly what I say,” I answered. “Tell him what 
I told you.” 

To say that Herbert Polton was pleased to see me 
would be to exaggerate. I introduced Bill, and for a 
few minutes they discussed the job. Bill was staring 
at him pretty closely as they talked, and I could see 
Polton wasn’t quite at his ease. 

“Of course, it’s not a healthy locality,” he said. 

“Three years I think you gave it, for any ordinary 
man,” I remarked. 

Polton shrugged his shoulders. 

“Saunderson looks pretty well salted,” he said. “Of 
course, if you don’t care about the job—don’t take it. 
I’m merely doing it to oblige Miss Jackson.” 


22 THE DUCKING OF HERBERT POLTON 

“Who will come out there with me,” put in Bill 
quietly. 

Polton started perceptibly. 

“Impossible,” he said decisively. “The climate is out 
of the question for a white woman. You would have 
no right whatever to take her out there. In fact, as a 
friend of her father’s, I should feel compelled to with¬ 
draw my offer unless you give me your word of honor 
that you won’t do anything of the sort.” 

“The climate is quite all right for six months of the 
year,” I remarked. “And for the remaining six, with 
the munificent salary you offer, Mr. Polton, I’ve no 
doubt Saunderson will be able to make satisfactory 
arrangements for his wife’s health.” 

I think it was then that Polton realized that I, at any 
rate, had guessed his game. 

“May I ask if it is you who are engaging Saunder¬ 
son, or I ?■” he asked venomously. 

“And may I ask,” I said, “why—having offered a 
job to a completely unknown man—you should be so 
concerned about his domestic affairs?” 

The gloves were off, and no one knew it better than 
Bill. 

“Have you ever read the story of Uriah the Hittite, 
Mr. Polton?” I said. 

“Get out of my office!” he snarled. 

“You swab!” said Bill slowly. “You filthy swab.” 
He reached across the desk, as if he were going to hit 
Polton, and in doing so knocked over a pile of papers. 
And then he stood very still staring at a book which 
had been hidden until now. 

“Get out of my office—both of you!” gibbered Pol¬ 
ton, “or I’ll send for the police.” 


THE DUCKING OF HERBERT POLTON 23 

“What have you to do with the British East African 
Combine?” thundered Bill. 

“Get out of my office!” shouted Polton, and then 
Bill’s great hands came down on him and he squealed 
like a cornered rat. 

“You reptile!” said Bill. “Now I remember. A boy 
who blew out his wife’s brains and then his own told 
me that Polton was the name of the man who had 
swindled him.” 

“Let me go, curse you!” screamed Polton, but Bill 
took no notice. 

“I half stunned your wretched agent this morning, 
Polton,” he said thoughtfully, “and I’m wondering 
what I’ll do with you.” 

And then suddenly he grinned. 

“Open the door, Squash-face: and bring my hat.” 

Half pushing, half carrying, he rushed Herbert Pol¬ 
ton down the stairs, and across the road. An unholy 
joy was on Bill’s face, and he paid not the slightest 
attention to the staring bystanders. In fact it was all 
over in a flash. For it can’t have been more than half 
a minute from the time Polton left his office to the 
moment when, with a resounding splash, he entered the 
fountain in Trafalgar Square. 

“You can run me in if you like, you excrescence,” 
remarked Bill dispassionately, as Polton, spluttering 
horribly, got his head above water. “But if you do I 
shall tell all I know about your swindling combine.” 

And then arrived the fullness of time of which I 
have spoken. What marvelous dispensation of Provi¬ 
dence had caused Uncle William to select that psycho¬ 
logical moment to pass on his way to Whitehall I know 
not. But it happened. 


24 THE DUCKING OF HERBERT POLTON 

Full of port and the club’s ’64 brandy he surveyed 
the dripping Polton in a kind of ecstasy. Then he 
threw him a penny. 

“A very creditable performance,” he boomed. 
“Much better than your tennis or your bridge.” 

He turned to Bill. 

“Why, good Lord! it’s young Bill Saunderson. I’ll 
bail you out, my boy, if there’s any trouble.” 

But there wasn’t. Herbert Polton darted into a cab 
and disappeared, so the police contented themselves 
with taking Bill’s name and address for reference. 

“Magnificent!” cried Uncle William. “Sublime! I 
wouldn’t have missed it for ten thousand pounds. Did 
you come back specially from Africa to do it?” 

“More or less,” grinned Bill. “He swindled me out 
of all my money.” 

“Did he, indeed?” said Uncle William. “Then 
what are you going to do about that niece of mine? 
Can’t marry her without money: must marry her if 
you’ve ducked Polton. We couldn’t let you out of the 
family. Come and dine at my club, my boy. Wonder¬ 
ful port. We’ll talk things over. To-night, at eight. 
And tell Moyra to order her trousseau.” 

He departed booming joyfully towards Whitehall, 
leaving Bill partially dazed. 

“What’s he mean, Squash-face?” 

“Just what he says, old man,” I answered. “And 
now I think I’ll leave you to break the news to Moyra 
and push off. I shall be very busy this afternoon.” 

“What are you going to do ?” 

“I’m going to see every human being I know in the 
City and tell ’em what’s happened. So long, Bill.” 


COINCIDENCE 


I MET her first in Monte Carlo. She called herself 
the Comtesse de Gramont, though who the Comte 
de Gramont was or had been was a matter which 
was never satisfactorily elucidated. Certainly if he 
existed he never appeared on the scene: her invariable 
companion was a fierce-looking maiden lady of doubt¬ 
ful age who rejoiced in the name of Miss Muggleston. 
And with Miss Muggleston we are not concerned. Be¬ 
yond stating that she was addicted to Patience and in¬ 
variably retired early to bed, Miss Muggleston may be 
dismissed from these pages, with the same completeness 
as she was, on occasion, dismissed from the presence of 
her employer. 

To say that Paula, Comtesse de Gramont, was beau¬ 
tiful would be banal. There are women whom it is 
impossible to dismiss as pretty or plain, ugly or beau¬ 
tiful—to place in a sort of well-defined class. She was 
beautiful undoubtedly—one of the most lovely women 
I have ever seen, if not the most lovely—but that was 
only the beginning, the least part of her. It is a big 
claim to make, but I veritably believe that even if she 
had been as ugly as sin her devilish attraction would 
have been in no way impaired. Her figure was mar¬ 
velous : her clothes unique, and yet exactly suitable for 
her. Not another woman in a thousand could have 
worn them: on the Comtesse nothing else was possible. 
And, finally, she possessed a charm of manner, and a 
gift of conversation which alone would have been suf- 
25 


26 COINCIDENCE 

ficient to keep a dozen men at her side had she wished 
for them. She did not wish for them—apparently: 
wherefore the dozen who would have liked to be there 
grew to a hundred. 

I was talking to Tony Graham in the Sporting Club 
the first time I saw her—and what Tony does not 
know about cosmopolitan European society is small. 
There was a general rustling and craning of heads as 
she entered, and it takes something to cause that in a 
place where some of the most beautiful women in the 
world are to be seen nightly. She was dressed in plain 
black, and a single diamond ornament blazed on her 
breast. But it was her carriage that made me look at 
her particularly, and ask the question that a score of 
Other people asked simultaneously. It was completely 
natural, and yet utterly regal: the walk of a woman 
who is absolutely sure of herself and supremely indif¬ 
ferent to what any onlookers may choose to say. In 
fact, as far as she was concerned, there were no on¬ 
lookers, though there was no trace of conscious su¬ 
periority on her face. In short, she accomplished one 
of the hardest things in the world to do better than I 
had ever seen it done before. 

“Who is she, Tony?” I asked when she had passed. 

He chuckled and lit a cigarette. 

“Paula, Comtesse de Gramont, my son,” he answered, 
“is her name, and that is the only positive fact that 
I can tell you about her. And that is only positive in 
that it is the name to which she answers, and under 
which her suite at the ‘Paris’ is registered. There are 
people who say that she is a left-handed descendant of 
the Hapsburgs: there are others who affirm that since 
her father left the Milan in Paris the cooking has 
deteriorated. You now perceive at her side young 


COINCIDENCE 


27 

Dorset, who doesn’t care a damn who she is, as long 
as he may have the privilege of losing more money on 
her behalf out of his already hopelessly encumbered 
estate. Women, as you may guess, do not love her: 
save for a dangerous-looking English woman who is 
doubtless by this time safely in bed, you'll never see 
one talking to her. Men, on the contrary, talk to her 
just as much as she will let them—which varies con¬ 
siderably and very capriciously. She fails, as far as I 
can see, to conform to the generally accepted rules of 
her type. For instance, there was a most delightful 
fellow here last year—Indian Cavalry, on leave. I 
forget his name—but if you’re curious you’ll see it up 
in the cemetery.” 

“What’s that?” I cried, sitting up suddenly. Once 
Tony gets started, no one who knows him listens very 
much: you know he’ll go on quite happily. 

“Cemetery, I said,” he continued. “He blew out his 
brains. Lived in her pocket for three weeks, and then 
killed himself. People said it was losses at the tables; 
but the boy was hardly ever in here. And that was 
what I was getting at: she doesn’t conform to type. 
I made inquiries afterwards, and the poor fellow hadn’t 
got a bean beside his pay. And two years of that 
wouldn’t have kept her in face-powder. If she stuck to 
old Guggenheimer, the Berlin banker, and one or two 
others of that kidney, I could understand it: if she 
even ostensibly stuck to them when they were round 
about it would be easy to fathom. But she doesn’t. 
If the spirit takes her, she’ll tell them to go to the 
devil, and take up some man right under their noses. 
And they always come back, though to do her justice, 
I don’t think she would mind if they didn’t. In fact, 
old man, a very remarkable woman.” 


28 COINCIDENCE 

“You know her, I suppose,” I said perfunctorily: 
my interest in the Comtesse was exhausted. 

“Oh! yes; I know her,” he answered. “That is to 
say, I have talked to her occasionally, and sat next her 
at dinner on one occasion. And, as I said before, she 
is not comme les autres. Far from it.” 

For a moment or two Tony Graham’s face grew 
serious. 

“If I had a son or a dear friend,” he went on 
quietly, “my prayer would be that he never came under 
her influence. You and I are old stagers, Bill, but a 
youngster—” He stared in front of him, frowning. 
“That boy in the Indian Cavalry wasn’t the first—not 
by any means. There was an Englishman at Biarritz 
some time ago, and a young American in Rome. And 
others.” 

I gently touched his foot. 

“Look out, Tony: she’s coming over here.” 

He glanced up and rose to his feet as the Comtesse 
passed. She held out her hand with a gracious smile, 
and Tony brushed it with his lips. 

“My luck,” she murmured, “is atrocious. Be a saint, 
my friend, and order me an orangeade.” 

He gave the order, and then with a faint smile he 
introduced me. 

“I was just telling Lord Telford that your luck is 
usually very good,” he remarked, and for a while we 
talked on systems and their utter futility. Most cer¬ 
tainly Tony was right over one thing: she was not 
comme les autres. As well as being the best-dressed, 
she was easily the most distinguee woman in the room, 
and it was difficult to believe that some of the things 
he had told me were not exaggerated. Round such a 
woman stories would be bound to gather, and Tony 


COINCIDENCE 


29 

was the most chronic gossiper of my acquaintance. 
And yet for him he had been singularly serious. . . . 

Fate decrees these things, I suppose. First my idle 
curiosity, then her wish for something to drink, and 
then young Peter Carruthers suddenly arriving. Is it 
all blind chance, or is there an ordered scheme of things 
leading to some definite end? If she hadn’t wanted an 
orangeade, the probability is they would never have 
met, and if they hadn’t . . . Lord! but it’s a funny 
world. 

“Hullo! Sir,” I heard a cheery voice at my elbow. 
“What are you doing in these gilded haunts of vice?” 

“It’s you, is it, Peter,” I said, looking up. “I thought 
you were skiing down avalanches at Wengen or some¬ 
where.” 

“Just come from there,” he answered. “Had the 
most glorious sport.” 

And as he spoke, his eyes were fixed on the Com- 
tesse, who was talking to Tony Graham. 

“I say, Sir,” he whispered, “you might introduce me, 
would you ?” 

Into my mind flashed Tony’s remark, but it was 
impossible to refuse, more especially as at that moment 
she turned and spoke to me. She acknowledged the 
introduction with a charming smile, and waved him to 
a seat beside her, into which Peter dropped with 
alacrity. 

He was an extraordinarily good-looking boy—the 
very best type of an Englishman—and, that evening, 
with his face tanned by the Swiss mountain air he was 
just about as perfect a specimen of young manhood as 
one could well imagine. His father was one of my 
oldest friends, and young Peter himself I had known 
since he was born. Six months before he had been 


COINCIDENCE 


30 

married to a girl I had never seen, and, being abroad 
at the time, I had not been able to attend the ceremony. 
But I gathered from what his father had written me 
that she was charming, and just the right sort for 
Peter. 

At the moment, however, she seemed a little out of 
the picture, which consisted exclusively of the Com- 
tesse. Apparently she had long wanted to try winter 
sports, and, short of trying them, a detailed description 
of their joys and difficulties by Peter was the next best 
substitute. She got it—-for ten minutes: then she rose. 
To-morrow he must tell her more. Assuredly he 
would: there was nothing which would give him greater 
pleasure. And was it my imagination, or was there 
a strange gleam of triumph in the eyes of Paula, 
Comtesse de Gramont, as she left us ? 

“What a perfectly stunning soul,” said Peter ecstat¬ 
ically after she had disappeared. “Who is she?” 

“A collector of specimens,” answered Tony Graham 
quietly. “You’d better be careful, young feller: too 
much of that lady ain’t good for the soul.” 

“How’s your wife, Peter?” I asked, as I saw him 
flush a little angrily. “It was a great disappointment 
for me that I couldn’t attend your wedding.” 

“She’s fine, Sir, thank you. I was forgetting you’d 
never seen her. She went back a week ago from 
Wengen—sister getting married or something—so I 
thought I’d barge down here for a day or two on the 
way home.” 

“When are you going back ?” I asked. 

“Oh! shortly,” he answered vaguely. “Depends 
rather. Well, I think I’ll push along over to the old 
pub. I’m feeling a bit weary. Good-night, Sir. See 
you to-morrow.” 


COINCIDENCE 


3 i 

With a nod to Tony Graham he was gone, and for a 
while we sat in silence. And it wasn’t until we parted 
for the night that the subject was alluded to again. 

“Get that boy away to-morrow, Bill, if you can,” 
he said. “By the milk train at crack o’ dawn, if there 
is such a thing.” 

He laughed a little mirthlessly. 

“There’s going to be trouble if you don’t. The poor 
devil is hooked already.” 

“Rot, Tony,” I said. “You’ve got the damn woman 
on the brain. The boy is only just married.” 

But it wasn’t rot, and I knew he was right even as 
I was answering him. Young Peter was hooked, and 
he didn’t even struggle. He seemed to be hypnotized 
by her during the next two or three days: it was pitiful 
to watch. He was for ever with her—lunching, walk¬ 
ing, dining; and at length I made up my mind to have 
a talk to him. After all, though he was twenty-nine, 
he was almost like a son to me: and though it’s ticklish 
work butting in on things of that sort, it struck me 
pretty forcibly that it was just a plain duty. 

I cornered him one morning just before lunch at 
Ciro’s. I guessed he was waiting for her, so the time 
was not propitious. But as it was the first time I’d 
seen him alone for two days the opportunity had to be 
taken. 

“Look here, young fellow,” I said, “how much longer 
is Monte Carlo going to have the pleasure of your com¬ 
pany ?” 

He got a bit red in the face. 

“Oh, I dunno, Sir,” he stammered. “Haven’t really 
thought about it.” 

“Then it’s about time you began,” I said. And then 
I let him have it straight from the shoulder. “It’s not 


32 COINCIDENCE 

playing the game, Peter, for you to go on monkeying 
round with the Comtesse de Gramont, while the girl 
you’ve just married is waiting for you in England. Cut 
it out, boy; the woman is rotten to the core.” 

It wasn’t till then I realized how far it had gone. 
He drew himself up very straight and stared at me. 

“Only the fact, Lord Telford, that you are consid¬ 
erably older than myself and a friend of my father’s 
prevents me hitting you in the face. So I will content 
myself with requesting you to go to the devil.” And 
then he added, with a sort of suppressed fury: “How 
dare you say such a thing of Paula?” 

Well, that didn’t help much—distinctly otherwise, 
in* fact. I talked it over with Tony Graham, and he 
Shrugged his shoulders. 

“ ‘A rag and a bone,’ Bill,” he said. “The old story. 
And you might as well talk to her about it as to that 
palm tree. She’s got him—she’s going to keep him, 
and when she’s finished with him she’ll throw him away 
like the core of an eaten apple.” 

“I think I’ll write to his father,” I said. “Not that 
old Jim can do any good, but he’d take it hard if he 
thought I hadn’t let him know.” 

So I wrote to Jim Carruthers that night, and four 
days later he arrived in Monte Carlo. He came straight 
up to my room, and I told him all the facts of the case 
as far as I knew them. 

“It’s a bad case, Jim,” I said, “a real bad case She’s 
got him absolutely under her thumb. He’s infatuated! 
He’s mad about the woman. I’ve done what I can, but 
he cuts me now when he meets me. You see I told 
him what I thought of her. Honestly, it’s not the boy’s 
fault: she’s enough to turn any man’s head.” 

“I must talk to him,” he said, heavily. “Get him 


COINCIDENCE 


33 

home somehow. Poor little Ruth suspects something 
already. You see he hasn’t written her—not a line. 
And when she heard I was coming here, she wanted to 
come too. Had the devil of a job preventing her.” 
Suddenly he shook his fist across the sunlit bay. “Curse 
this foul woman.” 

A couple of hours later I met him on the terrace. 
He seemed to have aged, and I guessed what had hap¬ 
pened. 

“Useless, Bill,” he almost groaned. “Absolutely use¬ 
less. Told me frankly that he’d made a ghastly mis¬ 
take in marrying Ruth, and that though he was 
frightfully sorry for her he wasn’t going to make the 
still more ghastly mistake of going on living with her. 
That this cursed woman was the only woman in the 
world for whom he could ever care: that she was his 
soul mate and a lot of other truck of that sort.” 

He stared out to sea and his face was gray. 

“Oh, God, Bill,” he muttered, “that Peter should do 
this thing. For he’ll take it hard—my boy will, when 
she’s finished with him and he finds her out for what 
she really is.” 

“But is he intending to marry her, Jim?” I asked. 
“Divorce and that sort of thing. Is that his idea?” 

“It’s his idea right enough,” he said bitterly. “But 
whether it is hers or not is a very different matter.” 

And from what I knew of the lady’s past history* it 
certainly wasn’t, though I didn’t tell him so. 

Three days after Jim arrived, Peter left and with 
him the Comtesse de Gramont. They had given no 
indication that they were going, and Peter had not even 
said good-by to his father. In fact, it was several hours 
before we found out that they had left in the morning 
for Taormina, in Sicily. 


34 COINCIDENCE 

Old Jim was distracted. He felt, I think, that while 
he was in the same place with them he could more or 
less keep an eye on the situation, which was absurd 
but understandable. And his first thought was to 
follow immediately. It was Tony Graham who dis¬ 
suaded him. 

“What’s the use?” he pointed out. “You can do 
nothing, my dear fellow. And it’s only torturing your¬ 
self unnecessarily. Take it from me, Carruthers, there 
is only one cure in a case of this sort—time. When 
it’s over, then will be the moment to try and mend 
things up a bit. And not at once even then. The boy 
will be like a wounded animal for a while: he’ll want 
to hide himself.” 

And so the three of us waited on. What exactly Jim 
wrote to the girl I don’t know, but if she’d suspected 
before she must have known by this time. And then 
suddenly one morning I saw it in the “Continental 
Daily Mail.” It danced in front of me, that stunning, 
paralyzing paragraph, so that for a while I could 
scarcely read it:— 

“SHOCKING TRAGEDY AT TAORMINA. 

“A dreadful tragedy took place last night in the 
celebrated ruins of the Greek Theater at Taormina. 
It seems that a young Englishman had climbed to 
the top of the ruins, which, on the western side are 
some thirty to forty feet high, and in the darkness 
must have missed his footing. The drop here is 
sheer, and the unfortunate gentleman was killed in¬ 
stantly by the fall. He has been identified as Mr. 
Peter Carruthers.” 


COINCIDENCE 


35 

I thought Jim would go mad when at last he’d 
grasped the fact. He idolized Peter, who was an only 
child as well as an only son. Nothing would persuade 
him that it was an accident; it was merely the influ¬ 
ence of that vile woman. She’d driven his boy off his 
head, and in a moment of insanity he’d killed himself. 
And so thought Tony Graham and I, though we didn’t 
say so. 

The one thing to do was to prevent Jim making a 
fool of himself, and stirring up some scandal, which 
would make matters worse. Nothing he could do would 
bring the poor lad back to life again; nothing he could 
do would punish the woman as she deserved. It was 
difficult to make him see it: the poor old chap was 
beside himself with grief. I think if Paula, Comtesse 
de Gramont, had crossed his path, he’d have strangled 
her with his own hands—Jim who would as soon have 
thought of lifting his hand to a woman as he would of 
kicking a sick child. 

But she didn’t. When we arrived—he and I—at 
Taormina, she had gone. And Jim was calmer by then. 
He looked twenty years older, but he did all the neces¬ 
sary formalities with a stiff upper lip. 

They were sympathetic, were the authorities. “A 
terrible thing for the signor: incredible how it could 
have happened. But undoubtedly an accident—oh, yes, 
undoubtedly. In the dim light. A false step. . 
Terrible! . ...” 

But one thing Jim and I did do before he took his 
dead back to England: we climbed to the spot where it 
had happened. It was a large flat bricked floor some 
five yards by five yards, close by the custodian’s house. 
There were two of these spaces, built above the old 


36 COINCIDENCE 

stage, and—well, it settled things. None could have 
accidentally walked off the edge, any more than one 
accidentally walks off a railway platform on to the line. 

For a while Jim stood there looking with unseeing 
eyes across the town towards snow-capped Etna. And 
then he turned to me. 

“Some day, Bill,” he said, “my boy will be avenged. 
I don’t know when, and I don’t know how, but it will 
come.” 

Without another word he walked back to his hotel, 
and shut himself in his room. And the next day he 
left. 

Three years later I came back from the East. A wan¬ 
derer from birth, I was homesick for England, but my 
brother, who was commanding one of the battalions in 
Malta, persuaded me to break my journey there. The 
tragedy of young Peter Carruthers had faded from 
my mind, and it wasn’t until I was dressing for dinner 
and saw through my window the snow peak of Etna, 
rising ghost-like from the sea away to the north, that 
it came back to me. Where, I wondered, was the 
Comtesse de Gramont? Had there been others who 
followed Peter’s example, and that of the man in the 
Indian Cavalry? What of old Jim, and the girl whom 
Peter had married ? 

And then at mess came the amazing answer to at 
least one of those questions. The Second-in-command 
had just returned from eight days’ leave at Taormina, 
where his mother was spending a few weeks. It was 
he who told me the Comtesse de Gramont was there 
too. Damned attractive woman: all the old dears in 
the hotel buzzing like a swarm of bees whenever they 
saw her. A trifle chutney, he opined, but extraordi- 


COINCIDENCE 


37 

narily good-looking. Did I knew her by any chance? 
Yes—slightly, and the conversation dropped. 

What a staggering coincidence, I thought, as I un¬ 
dressed that night. And then and there I decided to 
alter my plans. Instead of going on to Marseilles, I 
too would go and stop at Taormina. There was a boat 
next day to Syracuse, and when I announced my inten¬ 
tion of catching it, a twinkle appeared in the eyes of the 
Second-in-command. 

“A charming place,” he said, thoughtfully. “You 
know it—er—slightly, don’t you, Sir?” 

“Wrong, Johnny,” I answered. “Quite wrong. But 
have it your own way.” 

And so I met the Comtesse de Gramont for the sec¬ 
ond time. She was dining at a table not far from mine, 
and she had her back to me. With her was a much 
younger woman—quite pretty, but simply dressed. One 
of those people whom you dismiss as a nonentity, but 
quite a nice little thing in her way. A new companion 
I decided: presumably Miss Muggleston had been re¬ 
placed. 

And now as I went through my solitary dinner, I 
began to wonder what had really brought me there. 
Idle curiosity—the coincidence—what? And if she 
recognized me, as she probably would, what was I to 
say ? How should I meet her ? 

To be friendly with her was out of the question-— 
and yet one must preserve the conventionalities. 
Peter’s death had been accepted as an accident: on the 
surface the matter was closed. To reopen it would be 
a stupid solecism, and could lead to nothing except 
unpleasantness. Whatever one may think, the world 
demands a certain amount of acting. . . . 

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the Comtesse 


COINCIDENCE 


38 

push back her chair, and as she passed my table I be¬ 
came engrossed in the dangerous task of eating 
spaghetti in a manner suitable for public view. And 
so, somewhat naturally, she failed to recognize me, 
which was what I wanted. I was still doubtful what 
line to take when we did meet. 

In fact, the more I thought of it the more did it seem 
to me that my sudden whim to come there had been 
a foolish one. I decided I would catch the Rome ex¬ 
press the next day, and until then keep out of her way. 

And so after dinner I lit a cigar and went for a 
stroll. Almost unconsciously my steps led me through 
the narrow paved main street towards the ruins of the 
Greek theater. The last time I had walked that street 
had been with Jim, and my mind was full of him as 
I climbed the steps towards the ruins. Poor old chap! 
Broken up, I supposed, completely. And that dear 
wife of his! God! it’s a cruel thing to lose your all as 
they had done. And in such a rotten way, too. 

I sat down on a big smooth bowlder to finish my 
cigar. Below me the lights of Giardini twinkled round 
the shore of the bay; in front—on the top of Etna—a 
faint glow of pink showed up against the night. From 
the village close by came the sounds of a flute and a 
woman singing, and I wondered if it was just such a 
night three years ago when Peter had thrown in his 
hand. Black and sharp-cut above me to my left I could 
see the theater. They liked tragedy—the Greeks: but 
had they ever staged a grimmer one in their theater 
when it stood, than that which had been enacted in its 
ruins ? 

And even as the thought flashed through my mind it 
happened. To this day it staggers me as I think of it. 


COINCIDENCE 


39 

There was one terrified agonizing scream, and some¬ 
thing fell from the top of the theater. Then a dull 
crash—not twenty yards from where I sat—and silence. 

For a moment I sat stupefied; then I got up and 
rushed to where the thing lay. I could see it sprawling 
on the white stone—motionless. It was a woman, and 
before I got to her some premonition told me the 
truth. 

“I don't know when, I don't know how, but it will 
come.” 

It had. Paula, Comtesse de Gramont, lay dead at my 
feet on the same spot that Peter Carruthers had died 
three years before. 

A terrified girl appeared from inside the theater sud¬ 
denly. I looked at her, and it was the companion I had 
noticed at dinner. 

“Mon Dieu! Monsieur,” she cried, “what has hap¬ 
pened? Is she dead?” 

“She is dead,” I answered gravely. “You are her 
companion ?” 

“Yes,” she nodded. “But how terrible. The Com¬ 
tesse was standing on the edge watching the view, and 
suddenly she seemed to sway. And before I could get 
to her she gave a dreadful scream and disappeared.” 

I pacified her as best I could, and told her I would 
inform the police. 

“Your evidence will be wanted,” I said, “but don’t 
worry yourself. It will only be a formality.” 

It was only a formality, but during the next few days 
I wondered mightily. I am not a superstitious man, 
and yet there are more things in heaven and in earth. 
. . . The old tag. Had some strange power come out 
of the darkness to force that woman to her doom? Did 


4 o COINCIDENCE 

she see, as she stood there, Peter beckoning to her, or 
standing at her side compelling her to do even as she 
had made him do ? 

Jim had no doubts upon it. 

“I told you so,” he said gravely, as I sat with him 
after dinner a fortnight later, at his place in Sussex. 
“I don’t profess to account for it, but it must be more 
than a mere coincidence, Bill. The same place exactly: 
the same death. Remorse, perhaps; if such a devil as 
that woman was could feel such a thing. But nothing 
will ever convince me that some power outside our ken 
was not at work to cause her death.” 

For a while we talked, and it seemed to me he must 
be right. He’d aged dreadfully had the dear fellow: 
things didn’t seem worth while any longer. In fact, all 
he and his wife had left now was Ruth—Peter’s widow 
—and that wasn’t the same thing. 

“She’s a sweet girl, Bill,” he said. “You’ve never 
seen her, but she’s coming home to-morrow.” 

“Has she been living here ever since it happened?” 
I asked. 

“No,” he answered, “she’s been away for a year. 
She wanted to travel, and both Nell and I thought it 
would do her good. Of course, we’ll lose her some day 
—-we can’t be selfish, but we’ve made her feel that this 
is her home as long as she wants it.” 

“And has she any idea of what happened?” I asked. 

“Good heavens! No, old man,” he cried emphat¬ 
ically. “She thinks it was just an accident. Why, I 
don’t suppose that Ruth has any idea that women like 
that woman even exist. She’s very far from being 
one of these modern products. I wouldn’t have her 
know the truth for the world. She was suspicious at 
first, of course, but I succeeded in setting her mind 


COINCIDENCE 


41 

at rest. A dear girl: I’m glad you’re going to meet her 
at last.” 

And the next day I met Ruth Carruthers—but it 
wasn’t a case of at last. She came across the garden 
towards me, and for a space, we stared at one another 
in silence. For Ruth Carruthers was the terrified girl 
who had rushed out from the ruins of the old Greek 
theater in Taormina, just after the Comtesse de Gra- 
mont had fallen from the top: Ruth Carruthers was the 
companion who had replaced Miss Muggleston. 

“It was stupid of me not to realize,” she said steadily, 
“that the Lord Telford of Taormina was the Bill Tel¬ 
ford Dad so often talks about. But it didn’t occur to 
me somehow.” 

“Good God! my dear child,” I cried, “explain. I’m 
completely dazed.” 

“And yet it’s very easy,” she said quietly. “But I 
will explain, and when you’ve heard my explanation, 
you must take what steps you think fit. You were with 
Dad, weren’t you, when Peter killed himself?” 

I started slightly, but said nothing. 

“Of course, those two old dears think that I thought 
it was an accident. They didn’t know that I had a letter 
from Peter, written the day he did it. I burnt that 
letter months afterwards, but I know it by heart. It 
was a ghastly letter—smudged and incoherent. It was 
a terrible letter written from the depths of Peter’s tor¬ 
tured soul. He admitted everything to me: he hid 
nothing, he pleaded no excuse. He merely said that a 
power stronger than his own had taken possession of 
him, and that unless she would marry him he was going 
to kill himself. And then there was something about 
my divorcing him.” 

She stared across the garden towards the old house. 


42 COINCIDENCE 

“I was furious at first,” she went on. “It seemed so 
despicably weak. To sacrifice all this for what seemed 
to me to be merely a passing passion. And I was hurt— 
bitterly hurt. I dried up—something inside me was 
killed. And then as time went on the anger left me; 
the pitiful side of that letter grew uppermost in my 
mind. And with pity for him there grew a deadly, 
over-mastering hatred for that woman. At first it was 
purposeless. I just hated her. And then little by little 
it crystallized into the determination to make her suffer, 
even as she had made Peter. How I was to do it I 
hadn’t an idea, but sooner or later I was going to do it. 

“It was about this time last year that the opportunity 
came. The Comtesse de Gramont was advertising for 
a companion. She was in London, and it seemed to 
me that here was my chance. I answered the adver¬ 
tisement in person, and my luck held. She engaged me 
under another name, and I told them here that I was 
going to travel.” 

Once again she paused, and I didn’t interrupt her. 

“I don’t think, Lord Telford,” she went on after a 
while, “that it would be possible for me to explain to 
you the manner of woman she was. Before men she 
kept up a certain restraint: before me she kept up none. 
It was partly my fault, because, at times, I used to 
apparently sympathize with her in order to be quite, 
quite sure. She was the cruellist devil that the mind of 
a novelist has ever conceived of, in fact, if you put that 
woman’s character as I knew it in a book no one would 
believe you. She wasn’t particularly immoral in the 
accepted sense of the word, her one passion in life was 
to get men raving mad about her and then turn them 
down with the shrug of a shoulder and a bored sneer. 
I tell you, Lord Telford,” she cried passionately, 


COINCIDENCE 


43 


“there have been times when I have had to exercise all 
my self-restraint not to smother her face with vitriol. 
She was a fiend—without heart, without pity, without 
remorse. 

“But I waited. There was no hurry, and I had made 
up my mind what to do. I dropped out hints about 
my longing to see Sicily; I said I’d heard of the won¬ 
derful beauty of Taormina. And one day she sud¬ 
denly decided to go there. 

“‘A beautiful place, my little one,’ she remarked. 
‘And one day, when we are there, I will take you to the 
Greek theater and tell you a story that will amuse you.’ 

“My heart was thumping so that I thought she must 
hear .it, but I merely smiled and thanked her. And so 
we come to the night that it happened. We went out 
after dinner, and walked to the ruins. I knew what 
was coming, but now that the moment had actually 
arrived I felt quite calm. 

“ ‘That story you promised to tell me, Comtesse,’ I 
reminded her. ‘I am full of curiosity.’ 

“She laughed. Have you ever heard her laugh, Lord 
Telford, when she was being natural? It was the 
essence of refined cruelty expressed in a sound. And 
thus did she laugh that night high up in the old Greek 
theater. 

“‘A story, my dear,’ she said, ‘but not a new one. 
Merely/a man-^and a rather stupid man. But then they 
are all that. This one was rather good-looking, but a 
dreadful bore. Peter something or other—I’ve for¬ 
gotten his name. And he wearied me. He was so 
dreadfully serious. He had some absurd wife in Eng¬ 
land, I think—and would you believe it, he wanted me 
to run away with him and marry him. He was most 
insistent about it. In fact, it was on this very spot, 


44 COINCIDENCE 

that he went down on his knees and became positively 
crude. Of course I mentioned the dear non-existent 
Comte—my devoted husband—and pointed out that as 
we were Roman Catholics, divorce was out of the 
question. 

“ ‘He grew very white, and then the really thrilling 
thing happened. He said he’d throw himself off the 
top here unless I came away with him—divorce or no 
divorce. It was better than a play, and to help him on 
I laughed in his face. My dear, he did it: right in front 
of my eyes. Was killed instantly. Luckily there was 
no one about, and so I got back to my hotel without 
any one knowing I’d been here all the time. Carruthers 
—that was his name. I remember now. It must have 
been quite a shock to the absurd wife.’ 

“ ‘It was,’ I said. ‘So she became a companion to 
you, Comtesse, and now she laughs in your face.’ 

“She was standing near the edge, Lord Telford, 
when I seized her. And she gave one scream. Then 
she disappeared—and the rest you know. I acted, of 
course. I had to. But it was all cut and dried in my 
mind. And if it hadn’t—by some strange freak of 
fate—been you . . .” 

She broke off and sat staring at me. 

“You two made friends?” Jim’s voice hailed us 
from across the lawn. “Mum wants to talk to you, 
Ruth, and hear about your travels.” 

Without a word Ruth Carruthers rose and went in¬ 
doors, and Jim took her vacant chair. 

“Good girl, isn’t she, Bill,” he said. “By the way, I 
wouldn’t mention the fact of that woman’s death. The 
coincidence of the place might bring things back to her.” 

“Precisely,” I murmured. “I won’t.” 


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